Rangataua was a station on the North Island Main Trunk line,[1] in the Ruapehu District of New Zealand.

[6] The rails were extended to the station on 31 May 1907[6] and a passenger train with dignitaries and reporters reached it in July.

[6] During construction a small workshop was built at Rangataua[8] in 1907 and 1908, with a plumber, carpenter, painter, store, and smithy.

[9] A 3rd class station was built by September 1909 for around £11,000, including workshops and housing for an inspector, a stationmaster and two platelayers.

[21] In 1908[10] a new sawmill and treatment works were built to produce Powellised timber, which was claimed to resist rot and insect damage.

[23] They had rights to fell 4,402 acres (1,781 ha)[24] of rimu, mataī, kahikatea, māpou, kāmahi[25] and hard beech forest,[26] The works were connected to that and the railway by a tramway,[10] which extended some 6 mi (9.7 km) towards Mount Ruapehu, the total cost being about £30,000;[27] a 1910 photo showed a group on horses following a tramline on the way to the mountain.

[35] As shown in the table and graph below, like many NIMT stations, passenger numbers were highest during World War II, but then fell back to an average of around 25 a day.

[36] World War I labour shortages, the 1918 fire and conversion of land to grazing, then reduced timber traffic, but sheep numbers rose from 1,222 in 1913[37] to 12,662 in 1949.